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Obits: And, weller. More private notes for me to read in the future.
Sat, 28 Oct 2006

I've been away from a PC for a day or two now (amazing!), but I do see a few brave folks posting comments to my prior entry. I figured the material was too personal and heavy to touch with a 90-foot pole, but I very much appreciate them :) At any rate, permit me some grammatical mistakes and so on with these more emotional and unedited posts.

Yesterday I popped by to visit with my mother, and then over to my grandparents place - to begin picking things up, to start packing up, and gather some heirlooms for my little family. I thought it would be difficult to see my mum or enter the grands place, that seeing any number of items might set me off .. but it was .. not like that. I guess my mum has the hardest job, of writing a eulogy, but I figured this visit would be tough as well. (At least the eulogy needn't be sad, but can be a goodbye instead, since really it is a joyous occasion we had the grands for so long compared to many other people.) It was a little surreal of course, entering the place, but maybe because she passed after my grandfather and was somewhat expected to pass, or maybe because I'm older and wiser now, or maybe because some others perhaps nabbed trigger-items I don't know - but I just found it .. dry instead of difficult. In a way it was comforting to know that when it came to it, the items and things held little value, that it was really just her, and them, that had made it a warm place to visit. Of all their many years, they didn't have so many things really but it was their showing up at soccor practice, or visiting them in Florida and Disney Land, or staying with them for a couple weeks every summer as a child -- that was value. I tell you -- in my 20s (and now?) when I was working my tail off for 50-80 hours a week, I wasn't so wise enough to know what life was about but somewhere around .. now maybe, I've started to figure it out. Kids just cannot get it and perhaps they're better off for it :)

Value is when my brother, grandpa and I were going to hop in a little aluminum boat and go fishing in some little lake; it has a sand bar.. some mountain of sand erupting out of it -- has to be manmade and should be locatable with Google. I was the youngest, so he asked if I'd gone to the bathroom and was good to go. He dressed me up in the life jacket and we loaded up the tackle and paddled/motored out into the middle of the lake.. I remember the sound of the water lapping against the boat and how far out we'd gotten. Then I had to pee. Value is -- when he didn't toss me into the lake, but took me back to the trailer or cottage :)

(As an aside. I've always admired trees -- hard to kill, you can merge branches from different trees and they'll _grow_ - how weird is that, and they live for darned near forever unless something gets 'em. Sorry, a TV commercial just prompted that.)

Of course, I hadn't really wanted to 'tag' items as mine a few weeks before like grandmum wanted.. seemed too strange an idea. It still seemed vulturous yesterday to even consider walking up to her precious cabinets, rifle through and stash an item into a box. Its her or their things, still, I guess. Still, she was smart and knew what was going on, so had made an itemized list of who gets what, and which were up for grabs, and even prepared a schedule for when things should be moved out, when to sell the place, all that. Amazing. Too efficient, and a little creepy :) She was prepared, thats for sure. I'm surprised she didn't leave letters for us all, but then.. what could she have said that we don't know? I guess my mum had a chat with her to let her know her job was done.. kids were raised several generations over, we were all good, she it was fine for her to go. What more is there than that?

I almost broke up a couple times, when my mum told us of things that had been left for our future little one; that seems so particularly touching, that she was thinking so much about someone she wouldn't see. (Really, that is my only potential regret, that we'd not had a little one in time.. but we sure tried.) Heck, it breaks me up a bit even now, thinking about how much she thought about the little gaffer. It seems so majestic and thoughtfull, that she would try to provide for the future like that.. but then I guess, that is a grandparents and parents job. Anyway, today we popped by again and it was almost mundane, things being packed with such rapidity by a bunch of people. The assigned items had been moved out and folks were trying to package up the extras - prepare her clothes for donation, get the refridgerator cleared so it wouldn't go to smelly, and start wrapping up glasses, antiques, figures and trinketry. Books were to be given to the little library nearby.

I had the realization that it would be nice after everything had been picked by the many kids and grandkids and even a great-grandchild that nothing should be left, but the reality is that so much remains. Obviously the pots and pans will be left, and I think given to a family that someone knows who'd had a fire and needed pretty much everything, so thats nice. But so many little trinkets, toys, souvenirs from their trips here or there, Christmas ornaments... everyone is grown up and has enough; we'd all take a pile of things, and still so much left. So many things only meant something to them, or had notes from so-and-so no one had heard of. I guess I should've taken pictures of the place before anyone had touched anything, or of the little trinkets.. but then, maybe thats just trying to find ways of making yourself feel guilty. At any rate, it didn't occur to me and I guess all those things will be sold now. Their stories forgotten. (It does make you appreciate every book you pass by in a used book shoppe, and spy a name or date written into it. Every item has a story.. I guess thats why I've always been into retro and nostalgia.) My grandfather was into painting (and kilning) little ceramics, so there are a fair number of these sundry figures and scenes all around the place... and each time my mother would try to offer up one of the extras, and no one would/could take it, a little piece of her was lost. Our house is already full, and we've got boxes of things from the grands, but how could we turn away something that obviously meant so much to grandpa or grandma? Still, we all had to - there is only so much you can take. Of course, each time someone would take a little thing, a plate or a figure or a photo album or a book, mum would be happy. To me, it all just seemed a little weird -- grandmum not yet in the ground (that'll be Monday - the actual hard day - watching the casket lower always always hurts I tell you) and things are being carted out.

Since it was the process in motion, and grandmum had wanted everything out fast (she worried about people stealing everything while no one lived there, I suspect), I was detailed to going through a bookshelf. So many mystery novels (something my grandmum and I both enjoyed), so I nabbed a large stack of Dick Francis books - so many, and I didn't even know she was a fan. Heck, I'd never really heard of the author hardly, but Wikipedia tells me he knocked out a book a year for a long long time :) But also many novels and books and bibles, many with newspaper clippings, notations and jots... some were gifts from others back in the 20s and 30s, some were very old, some were posessions of her parents and so-on. So now I have a couple more boxes of books :) Still, it didn't feel right to go through their private things.

Anyway, all in all .. I guess we had to get things out, so we did some of that today. It will be very odd to drive to my old hometown on Christmas and not pop by grand's place for a visit or to see her around the dinner table. This coming Christmas it'll be a smaller family, for sure, but at least next Christmas.. it'll be larger again, and everyone in the family is so very happy for us. Something not likely to happen, but I wish it would, is to label and note down stories of each item in the place.. in my mums place I suppose. In modern terms, it would be nice if mum had a wiki and a digital camera. Take pictures of each artifact and then note down whatever is remember about it -- when I found a little bible with no cover on it, it must have been kept for some reason. It was valued. When I asked, my mum knew it was owned by my grandmothers father, so is precious indeed. Who will know every story of every item, years from now? Certainly, my mum will not last forever (damnit) -- but again, the stories are not important except perhaps for genealogy. Its the people that count.

Really, I know most people haven't had grands in a long time and I still have two from my fathers side, though I expect not for much longer. I don't know them so well, which is a shame, but amazing nonetheless. I guess I didn't know my great-grandparents at all, only remembering the most vague of memory since my great-grandmum had a wooden leg ("peggy").. so she must've passed on some thirty years ago, which would make my mum somewhere in her 30s give or take. My father lost his grands in his teens I think, so really.. we've been blessed by Father Time for so long. Awesomely, my nephew's highschool is only a few minutes from my grandmums place (his great grandmum) and he took to visiting her every day at lunch for the last few weeks. Imagine that -- a boy of 14 visiting his great-grandmum every day. A great kid, and it makes me very happy. Hell, he certainly outdid me, which shames me a little. Grandmum understood how busy I was, but that is my second possibly but not-really regret, that I never talked to or saw her enough.. still, my nephew got to know her pretty well near the end. Amazing.

Anyway, I guess I've rambled enough. Just wanted to get something down, to note how weird it was to enter a place and nab items with the rest of the family, to note proudly that I will miss them, but happy that its normal.. that we've never had any great misfortune in our lives.

The funeral is Monday; that will be difficult I'm sure .. I think, anyway. It seems we're all pretty tough now, and okay with this passing, but watching the casket slowly sink into forever is seriously ... something. Today we don't use our strong emotions nearly enough, so when they come it sure makes you humble. Grandma -- I'll see you Monday, and I'll see you again in 100 years hopefully.. maybe 30 to 50, but hopefully a 100 or so if I get my way :) I'll have a lot to say then, but keep a good eye on us and my beloved parents from above. We'll sure miss you and grandpa down here.

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